


Gone (To Pieces)

by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Series: The Destined Duo Saga [7]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 11:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4346639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: What if, when Doumeki dies, Watanuki spends the next few weeks expecting to see him in his dreams, like he still sees Haruka sometimes, but he never comes. Haruka comes to talk to him about it.</p><hr/><p>For a breathtaking, startling moment, he thinks Doumeki has shown up in his dreams. Same build, same hair, same face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone (To Pieces)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt borrowed from [arisprite](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Arisprite), who stole it from [username-goes-here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/username_goes_here)~
> 
> Arisprite also has her lovely version of this prompt on her Tumblr [here~](http://arisprite.tumblr.com/post/124118509337/from-a-prompt-stolen-ha-ha-from)
> 
> I do not own _xxxHolic_. Thanks for reading!

For a moment, Watanuki thinks that it's him.

For a breathtaking, startling moment, he thinks Doumeki has shown up in his dreams. Same build, same hair, same face.

 _Wrong mouth_ , Watanuki thinks, as Haruka smiles, and something deep and dark and hidden away in him _dies_ even further, even in the dream.

"You haven't been smiling lately, Watanuki," Haruka says, as they sit under the trees at the Shinto temple. He blows out a mouthful of smoke that Watanuki rivals with his own smoke from his pipe, and Watanuki stares into the distance. "You should smile more," Haruka continues, as though he's heedless to the distinct lack of conversation.

"A smile doesn't always necessarily speak the truth," Watanuki says shortly.

Haruka is undeterred. "Just as a blank face doesn't always hide the truth, either."

Watanuki knows that he has figured him out. He has known that since Haruka had shown up, to be honest, but he hates to let himself give into the thought. He laughs dryly. "It can try."

He raises the pipe to his lips. It has been a long time since he choked on the smoke. It has been a long time.

"... He's gone on, hasn't he?" he asks shortly.

Haruka is infinitely patient, awaiting the questions with premeditated answers. "Yes, he has."

Watanuki closes his eyes. He can't shake the pictures from beneath his eyelids, but he forces himself to look at them. "... Good," he breathes, as he wants to believe it.

He will live and die alone.

Even Doumeki couldn't stick around forever to combat that ideal.

"But he will never be gone, you know. Shizuka is quite stubborn about watching over you, if you'll remember."

"I remember," Watanuki says softly. Remembers like it was yesterday. Like seventy years ago was yesterday, he remembers. And he misses. Misses _him_.

His eyes fill with tears, and he is acutely horrified.

That he misses _Doumeki_ , of all people. Because that guy had to go and die. Because he had to go and leave, and years passing meant nothing to Watanuki when he was never growing up himself.

The raw emotion is frightening, when he is so used to it being blunted into nothingness.

"Kimihiro."

The voice is too familiar, and too different, and Watanuki is surprised when Haruka pulls him into an embrace that he wasn't expecting.

"Haruka-san..."

For a moment, he can imagine. That he's fine. That Doumeki is fine. That this isn't a dream, and that this isn't Haruka.

For a moment, he has peace.

"A moment of peace is worth a lifetime of chaos," he mumbles, and his words come out thick and marred with tears that he cannot let fall. If he falls apart now, there is no one left to pick up the pieces.

"Only one moment?" Haruka questions.

"... Maybe a few." Watanuki's lips curl into a twisted smile. For all of this, his time with Doumeki, and Himawari, and Kohane, and Yuuko... he wouldn't trade any of those moments, for any thing.

"There's my Watanuki-kun's smile."

　

 

Two days later, a client comes to the shop.

Watanuki leans back against the arm of the chaise lazily, and smoke billows out from his parted lips. The kimono falls from his chest, and he lets his eyes skate to the doorway as it opens.

Maro and Maru's usual cries of "A customer for our master~" do not come.

Instead, Watanuki meets a certain golden brown gaze from across the room and, for the first time in a long time, nearly chokes on the smoke from his pipe.

"My grandfather used to tell me stories," the russet-eyed man says, bluntly.

Watanuki gapes.

　

 

Maybe

he can fall apart

because someone will be

there to pick up the piece after all


End file.
